Sporting footwear formed by injection molding of plastics material is known in the prior art. Such molded plastics footwear can comprise an upper provided with a non-slip sole, a front opening defined by two overlapping flaps and usually a tongue located adjacent to the flaps. On the two flaps, rings, eyelets or hooks are commonly applied to receive the traditional cross lacing which binds the foot-wear to the wearer's foot snugly.
A drawback of such known footwear is that the attached lacing elements, eyelets or hooks, are generally made of metal, requiring additional costly time-consuming manufacturing steps, which weigh heavily on the final cost of the product. In boots, the front closure flaps are long requiring a greater number of metal eyelets or hooks, thus further increasing cost.
Another drawback of the prior art footwear is that the threading of laces through eyelets or rings is an inconvenient, time-consuming operation, whereas if hooks are provided it is much easier to engage them with laces, but undesirably there may be a quick separation of the laces from the hooks every time the footwear is undone or loosened.
Therefore, an object of the invention is to provide sporting footwear of injected plastics, for example, mountain, hockey or training boots having a more convenient lacing arrangement which is easier to manufacture and of much lower cost compared to the above-discussed prior art.
Another object is to provide footwear of the above-mentioned class which possesses the known advantages of lacing eyelets and hooks while at the same time eliminating their known deficiencies.
A further object is to realize sporting footwear possessing auto-blocking lacing, that is, lacing which does not loosen when the wearer's stretching of the lace ceases.
The above aims of the invention are achieved in sporting footwear made of injected plastics having a front opening including closure flaps provided with integral means to engage crossed lacing, wherein the means consists of projections formed of the same plastics material from which the upper and closure flaps are formed.
Further, in accordance with the invention, lace engaging means associated with the integral projections hinder reverse sliding of the lace relative to the projections, at least when the lace is slackened.
Advantageously, each lacing projection is roughly semi-circular or mushroom-sahped to conveniently engage the lace under a lip thereof. Coacting with each lacing projection is at least one protrusion formed from the same plastics used to mold the upper, and said protrusion being at a distance from the lacing projection somewhat less than the cross sectional thickness of the lace, at least when the lace is slackened.
The features and advantages of the invention will become more clearly apparent in the course of the following description, which is to be read with reference to the accompanying drawings.